The Genius and the Cheerleader
by wonderland-bliss
Summary: Prequel to "The Blast From the Past." Tells the story of how high school freshman-aged Zachary Uriah Addy and Kylie wells met for the first time. Rated K for brief language. One-shot, as of right now.


**Disclaimer: Bones belongs to Hart Hanson, not me.**

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With the exception of his fellow speech and debate team members, whom he considered no more than occasional social companions, Zachary Uriah Addy did not have any friends. Every day he endured beatings, taunts and jeers from his peers about his inept social skills and his high intelligence, and every day he'd come home nursing a new bruise or sprain. After extensive research on bone structure and the amount of force needed for both minimal and maximal damage, he'd eventually learned how to minimize the damage inflicted to him. Granted, he could've skipped the daily torture, graduated high school when he was ten, and completed both undergraduate and doctorate studies well before he was twenty, but Mr. and Mrs. Addy wanted him to attend school with peers his age to help him integrate socially. And as a result, he was _bored_.

But all that changed one fateful October day two months into his freshman year of high school when a brunette cheerleader, standing at five feet two inches at most, came out of nowhere, shoving one of his regular bullies and greeting him with a right hook to his jaw.

"The hell's your _problem_?!" she demanded.

"The hell are _you _doing defending a freak like him?" the bully retorted. "Can he even talk?"

"Of course he can, _dumbass_." Zack watched in awe as the pint-sized girl stood her ground against the boy who was at least four inches taller than she. _Who is she?_ He wondered. _And since when did someone that isn't family actually care about me?_ "He just has better things to do than talk to scum like you." She turned to him before grabbing onto his forearm with both of her hands to pull him up.

But before he could awkwardly mutter any word of thanks, she'd already left. The last he saw of her was a swish of her long, brown hair over her shoulder and her wide smile that matched her hazel doe eyes.

_If only I possessed the same courage that she does_. Zack sighed, straightening his maroon pinstriped shirt and smoothing out his straight black jeans before heading off to his AP chemistry class.

He spent the next few days trying to find her, to no avail. But after some subtle sleuthing, he'd deduced from talk he heard among a trio of cheerleaders in his art class that her name was Kylie Wells, and that she'd in fact been suspended for the past week for dislocating his tormentor's jaw and consequently hospitalizing him. He should've felt bad for the boy, but for some reason, he felt…happy. Or was his seeming happiness merely relief? Emotions confused him.

"So it seems as though we have a new member," the debate club advisor, Joe O'Russell, put a familiar face on the spot. Zack watched from two seats to her left as she twisted her folded hands nervously on the desk she was sitting at, not making eye contact with anyone. "Kylie Wells, am I right?"

"Aren't you the chick who just got suspended?" a girl named Shana Pinkston rudely asked, turning to face her from a couple rows forward.

"Yup, that's her alright," a boy to his right, James Lopez, nodded. "Heard he had to get surgery. Nice going, Wells. Pretty good…for a cheerleader."

Zack looked up in surprise. So she _was _the girl who had saved him from his tormentor and his minions. When the questions had settled down and everyone had occupied themselves, catching up on what they'd done over the weekend, Zack moved one desk over, hesitantly reaching out to tap her shoulder.

"What do you want now?" he jumped slightly as she reeled around to glare at him. "Oh," she softened upon seeing him. "Hi."

"Ijustwantedtothankyou." He sounded perfectly clear in his mind, but apparently it came out as no more than a garbled mumble.

"Um, what?" she looked at him, her brown eyebrows crinkling as she tried to decode what he'd just said.

"I just," he took a deep breath the way his older sister had taught him to do whenever he got nervous, "I just wanted to thank you."

"What for?" her tone remained the same.

"For putting that guy in the hospital," he answered meekly, slightly intimidated by her. Was she always this unpleasant?

"Oh," she nodded. "It's no big deal, even if I did get suspended."

"It is to me," Zack attempted to assert himself. "He's been beating me up every single day since middle school. I'm rather relieved that he won't be able to hurt me again for awhile."

"What's his deal with you, anyway? You can't even hurt a fly," she took a slight jab at his meek demeanor.

"My mother has told me that he is merely jealous of my high intelligence."

"Your high intelligence?" she raised her eyebrows skeptically.

"Yes," he nodded. "I have an IQ of 170. I have a certificate to prove it if you don't believe me."

"You carry around a certificate with your IQ on it?" she snickered.

"No, it's at my house, in a briefcase full of important files," he replied. "I can show you at the next meeting, if you'd like."

"That's okay," she shook her head. "I believe you. Besides, I don't know if I'll be back."

"Then why did you come here, if not to join?" Zack found himself angry for a reason he couldn't quite make out. Why did it bother him that he might not get to interact with Kylie Wells again? "Are you accompanying a friend of yours?"

"I wish," she shook her head. "I'm here because my brother forced me to be."

"That's not a very logical reason," Zack frowned. His brothers wouldn't do such a thing to him, though that was partially due to his abilities to out-reason them.

"Right?" she rolled her eyes. "Apparently I argue too much for my own good."

"You do," Zack observed bluntly, unaware of how his words would be interpreted. There was a substantial truth to her words, as far as he was concerned. Her attitude alone suggested that she constantly wanted to argue with anyone she came across.

"What?!" her nostrils flared.

"It's quite clear from your interactions with others," he replied knowingly.

Was she serving punishment for her actions, or did she genuinely want to be on the debate team? Either way, Zack found himself pleased by his current situation, in the company of the first person to not treat him like crap.

"I guess it is," she shrugged.

"Perhaps it will benefit you," he offered, unsure as to why he was attempting to convince her to officially join. "If you argue on a regular basis in a more formal setting, it might improve your relationship with your brother, since you will inevitably argue less with him."

"How do _you _know what my relationship with my brother is like?" she narrowed her eyes.

"It wouldn't make much sense for me to know _exactly_ what it's like," he pointed out, "but I _do _have seven siblings, so I can get a gist of it."

"Well, are any of your siblings your legal guardian?" she spat bitterly.

"No," Zack admitted. "But three of them do have children of their own. They still sometimes treat me like a child, so I understand the feeling of constantly being looked after, warranted or not."

"Do you always talk like that?" she teased him lightly.

"Talk like what?" he was confused. What was wrong with how he talked?

"All flowy and formal," she waved her fingers in the air slightly.

"Yes, I can't help it," he replied. "It just so happens that I articulate best that way. Is it a problem?"

"No, not at all," she shook her head. "Makes me feel kinda dumb, but it's not a big deal."

"Have I hurt your feelings?" Kylie Wells was extremely confusing, Zack mused. Her happy demeanor, yet unpredictable mood swings made for an interesting, yet compelling personality.

"No," she shook her head. "It's just, I've never talked to someone so sophisticated that isn't at least thirty years old."

"I _am _a genius," he pointed out. "I suppose that's part of it. I could talk less like myself if you'd like. It would take some practice, but I'm sure I'll get it…"

"No, that's okay," she laughed. "I like the way you talk. It suits you."

"But it makes you feel dumb," he echoed her words from before.

"Nah," she waved her hand. "It's more like, I wish I could reflect my intelligence in the way I talk as well as you can. You see, I have a tendency to…dish things out."

"Dish things out? What's that supposed to mean?" he frowned. Kylie used many metaphors in her dialect, which happened to be one of his few weaknesses.

"Just means that I call things the way I see them," she explained. "I have basically no filter."

"Filter of what?" Again, with the metaphors! If she used one more, he was sure his head was going to explode, even if the odds were very, very slim.

"As in, it's hard for me to hold my tongue," she tried again.

"Holding your tongue would be very difficult, due to the lack of friction on the…"

"Of course it'd be difficult!" she began doubling over in laughter, clutching her stomach. Zack suddenly felt embarrassed. He'd never seen the logic of speaking with metaphors or hyperboles, both of which Kylie happened to use often. Her manner of speaking annoyed him to no end due to that fact, but he couldn't help but be drawn to her anyway.

"Could you stop laughing now?" Zack crossed his arms. "I believe you've made your point."

"Yeah, sorry," she cleared her throat. "Anyway, I think we should be friends."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously. Nobody ever wanted to be his friend; therefore he decided he was better off without any.

"You're cute," she shrugged with a lopsided grin. "Not to mention you're really smart, and underneath all that articulate eloquence, I think you're really sweet. That's why we should be friends."

"Your reasons are very sound," he nodded, "but I regret to tell you that I don't have friends."

"Looks like you could use one, then, huh?" she smiled encouragingly, softer this time.

"I don't have friends," he repeated, slightly irritated that she did not comprehend him the first time. "The closest thing I will ever have to friends are people I spend time with on occasion to maintain some semblance of a social life."

"Okay, then," Kylie did her best to hide that his words had hurt her feelings slightly. "Can I help with that?"

"'Can' questions one's ability to do something, whereas 'may' conveys a request for permission," he corrected her grammar. "So the proper question should be '_may_ I'."

"Whatever," she grumbled, not bothering to hide her displeasure. "_May_ I, then?"

"Yes," he nodded in approval. "Yes, you may."

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**Just to clarify, I know in the show Zack graduates college when he's like 16 or something like that, but for the purposes of this story (and the other one), he's going to school at the normal age with everyone else. Also, I mention in my other story that Kylie is 5'4", but since she's much younger here and obviously still growing, she's shorter too. I originally intended for this to be a one-shot, so as of now, this is the end. But if I can come up with a good enough plot and enough people like it, I may continue this. Or I could possibly do a series of somewhat one-shots leading up to the beginning of "The Blast from the Past," which y'all should read if you aren't already doing so. Let me know what you think; I'd love to hear from y'all!**


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